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Pro-social education helps offenders enter society

One way the Mississippi Department of Corrections works to reduce recidivism is provide a course that teaches soft-skills and pro-social behaviors. The Thinking For a Change course graduated its second class at the ICC Belden campus this month.

TUPELO, Miss. — One way the Mississippi Department of Corrections works to reduce recidivism is provide a course that teaches soft-skills and pro-social behaviors.

The Thinking For a Change course graduated its second class at the ICC Belden campus this month.

James Johnson, associate director of community corrections, said the ultimate goal is to reduce the already low repeat offender rate by changing the way offenders think about problem solving and stressful situations.

The program is a part of MDOC’s post-release supervision programs.

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“It goes back to social learning,” he said. “I grew up in a pro-social environment and learned through family, friends and school programs. Many offenders don’t grow up in these environments. Just like you can learn these bad problem solving skills, we can teach good ones.”

Johnson said the offenders in these courses have to work together to solve problems and are given a path toward job training and GED programs along the way.

He said extended incarceration often helps to create the problems that breed the anti-social behaviors they are trying to change.

“It’s all connected,” Johnson said. “They are the same attitudes that lead to teen pregnancy and high dropout rates. It’s self-perpetuating.”

Half of Mississippi’s inmate population didn’t finish high school. Since that’s self-reported, the figure could be higher.

The average state inmate reads on a sixth-grade level.

Jartavious Jones graduated from the most recent Thinking for a Change class.

“It’s a good thing MDOC did for us,” he said. “The things we wanted to do in life, they had in the classroom for us.”

He said with the help of the program he was able to get his GED and get on track to find employment.

“I would say it’s easier to stay out of legal trouble with educational opportunities,” he said. “It’s better to go on and get your GED while you’re out in the world than wait until you’re incarcerated.”

Jones said he probably would have avoided incarceration altogether had he stayed in school or gotten a GED.

Marcus Cherry, another recent graduate of the program, said not only do you learn better problem-solving skills and have more opportunities, “It just got me around a positive crowd of people,” he said. “And if you’re getting your education, you’re busy, you’re constantly doing activities and staying out of trouble.”

Johnson said they hope with this program to reduce recidivism and in some cases help keep families together and break the cycles that lead to anti-social and criminal behavior.

“With the right programs, you can get better results than from just locking someone up,” he said.

Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps said while the average inmate reads on a sixth-grade level, half of them never finished high school.

Epps said the commonly heard maxim that prison cells can be built based on a state’s literacy rates at third grade isn’t entirely true but it’s close.

“I absolutely believe that someone who is illiterate has a better chance of being an inmate they are coming in on a sixth-grade reading, writing and arithmetic level,” he said. “We don’t see a lot coming in our system with a Bachelor of Science or arts or a master’s or Ph.D.”

Epps said the reason people with lower literacy levels are more susceptible to criminal behavior is a lack of opportunity.

“There are individuals I’m aware of with degrees who are having trouble finding jobs,” he said. “If a person at the sixth-grade level doesn’t have a GED or high school diploma, their (lower) quality of life is probably going to lead to criminal activity and they’ll probably get in trouble.”

Epps said a student may fall behind or drop out of school, but once he becomes an inmate he doesn’t get a choice.

“If you’re classified to go to school, you’re going to go to school,” he said. “Our inmates may say, ‘Commissioner, I’m not going to school,’ and we’ll write them up and after so many write ups they go to a single cell by themselves for 23 hours a day. Regular school teachers can’t do that.”

Epps and his staff take advantage of their captive audience. There are 3,798 slots for inmates to go to school and 2,370 slots for inmates to receive drug rehabilitation.

He said in 2011, the department had 682 students get GEDs, 519 get vocational certificates and 2,569 graduated from drug rehab.

“We did a study with Mississippi State a couple of years ago that showed our inmates maintain continued employment after release longer than a civilian,” he said. “That’s why I know we’re making a difference day-by-day.”

Epps said there’s no single solution to lowering the state’s incarceration rates.

“We have to lower teenage pregnancy; we cannot continue to be the number one on this. We have to lower the number of unwed parents. We have to continue to preach to parents it’s their job to raise their kids. While that’s going on let’s go back to kindergarten and early childhood education and make sure kids can read before we pass them onto the next level.”